Never really thought about it, before.
That awkward moment when you realize plastic dinosaurs are made of actual dinosaurs.
— Fantasy Author (@BrianRathbone) June 9, 2016
Mind you, birds become much cooler when you realize that they’re themselves the optimized descendants of dinosaurs…
I mention this because the Smithsonian will close down its dinosaur exhibit at the end of April, in order to renovate the life out of said exhibit. The refurbishing is scheduled to last five years, so if you haven’t taken a gander at the Smithsonian’s Fossil Hall lately you probably should meander down there some time in the next two months.
My eldest demands it; and today is a day where my eldest may demand much.
So, lightish posting today.
(Via Instapundit) Now there’s a sentence I wasn’t expecting to write today. Anyway…
New scientific research raises the possibility that advanced versions of T. rex and other dinosaurs — monstrous creatures with the intelligence and cunning of humans — may be the life forms that evolved on other planets in the universe. “We would be better off not meeting them,” concludes the study, which appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Xenophobic, much? Yes, OK, the first alien race that we ever meet could look like this. Or they could look like this. Or, you know, even like this (I so totally doubt it, though). That’s an entirely different question about whether or not they’re dangerous to humanity. I mean, I’m descended from countless generations of steadily-less-hairy hominids that killed everything that looked at them cross-eyed and I think that I can be trusted not to eat any random alien babies that might come into view. It seems impolite – worse, an unexamined assumption – to suggest that a hypothetical sentient saurian race would be automatically awful (or automatically wonderful, for that matter). Continue reading This is genuinely slanderous against dinosaurs.
[YET ANOTHER UPDATE]: Since this post has long since left the front page, I suggest that those of you upset that Jane Yolen has been accurately pegged as a hateful bigot go here instead to waste time writing bitter screeds about censorship that will be sent directly to spam… unread*, unloved, and unremembered. Aside from everything else, the site automatically closes threads after a fixed length of time; this will give you a few extra days to distract you from the spiritual void that forces you to play moth to the flame.
Nay, thank me not. Just buy stuff on Amazon
*Unless I need them to fund my next pledge drive, of course.
[FURTHER UPDATE] Annnd somebody wins the coveted ‘direct-to-spam’ award for continuing to pout. I think that’s worth the PayPal button, don’t you?
Hey, this is how I got all those donations for the iPad2, remember? I don’t know why it works, either, but it apparently does and I don’t argue with any harmless societal quirk that feeds my gaming habit. Which, unfortunately, seems to be happening with the iPad2, too. Surely there’s a non-iPhone digital video camera that the iPad2 version of iMovies likes…
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[UPDATE] Thanks for the hate mail, folks! Glad to get confirmation that I struck a nerve.
…looking at her children’s books:
[The Capital Times]: What had you heard about our senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, before you read my piece and what concerns you about the idea of him reading one of your stories to children?
[Jane Yolen]: He is a Republican junior senator associated with the Tea Party. And that makes me think that either he is 1. A True Believer in the Tea Party NoNothingness which frightens me or 2. Kowtowing to it for votes which possibly frightens me more. Since the Tea Party (and alas much of the Republican Party these days) are the ones behind the notions of breaking unions, throwing librarians out of their jobs, and defunding education, I think it is more than a tad bit disingenuous for such politicians to be out in libraries reading books to children who will have no libraries to visit if we listen to the Tea Party.
The book in question was “How do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms?” Apparently, the answer is “Only in a proper, progressive manner.” Personally, if I was a children’s author I might be a little more careful about spewing out my elemental hatred of a demographic known for its relatively larger family sizes, but I suppose that Yolen has not yet realized that potential readers can find out about these petty little prejudices these days. Either that, or it’s simply more important to her that she remind the world that courtesy and politeness only be shown to what Yolen apparently considers real people: that is to say, non-conservatives. Continue reading Jane Yolen doesn’t want your filthy conservative eyes…
It never occurred to me – although it should have – that the people who make television shows might get a little upset when those shows are canceled on them, but this seems just a tad much.
On the other hand, that show* was full of obnoxious stereotyping anyway, so go Alvarez Impact hypothesis.
Moe Lane
*I was going to flog it, but when I went to go look it up I found this instead:
Much more worth spending your hard-earned money on, particularly if you have a desk.
Buying the kid some books from his gift card money, and we saw this on the checkout:
Budget or no, came pretty close to picking it up. I mean, come on. Towel origami. I didn’t even know that existed before today, and I should have.
